I mean, “What does a guy say about his story?” Dr. Seif, Professor Seif, Officer Self, Sergeant Seif… Pastor, Rabbi, whatever… you know I’ve carried all those titles. I never in a million years thought of that. Well a hearty Shalom to all of you. Jeffrey Seif here. That’s how Jews say it in Texas. Seif is a German name. My mother and father met in America. Mom was smuggled out of Nazi Germany by nuns. Mom died in a mental hospital because we could get mom out of Germany but couldn’t quite get Germany out of mom. I went to a Jewish school. I went to the Jewish Community Center after school. I lived in a Jewish neighborhood and had Jewish friends. I didn’t know there was really anything but being Jewish.
One time about 12 or 13 I’m walking down the street and these two girls, they yelled, “Hey you dirty Jew, you killed Christ!” I remember that vividly. I don’t know – I didn’t understand what Christians were all about. My parents sent me to a yeshiva, a religious Jewish school, and it was strict it really didn’t mediate life to me.
I wasn’t interested in Rabbi Hoffman, I was interested in Avi Hoffman, you know, being a hippy! I pushed away from Judaism not out of any dislike for Judaism but just part of my own quest for discovery. Well, I’m 16 years old laying in bed my mother comes in and tells me to clean up the room and I give her a hard time. She says, “Well if you don’t like it you can leave!” So I left. Running away from home, hitchhiking to California happened just like that.
A couple of weeks later I’m in San Francisco meditating in Haight Ashbury in the park. That’s when I got my first exposure to Christians that were okay. You know they were nice. They were gracious. They’d give me a ride. They would want to give me a meal… You know I realized there were Christian people out there in the world that were kind of cool. It’s really important in the Jewish world you know ‘education is king’, but I was just high all the time in high school. I just drifted through with a lot of D’s and F’s. You know, I just wasn’t on anyone’s most likely to succeed list… It’s kind of like roadkill on the highway of life.
I was in Pennsylvania and I was walking down the street and a guy with hair down to his waist comes up to me and gives me a pamphlet and wants to talk to me about Jesus and I say look man, you know, “I’m Jewish I don’t believe in Jesus.” And he said “Why not?” I said “I don’t know, I just don’t”. He said, “Jesus was a Jew, give it a second look.” And then he whips out a Bible and shows me stuff in there and I was just amazed. The virtues of kindness, love, compassion toward your own and toward the brother from another mother are in the biblical text in the Hebrew Bible. But it comes forth much clearer in the newer covenant where one understands that the God of Israel isn’t just about extending grace to Israel, it’s all about the world. And that’s the story from the get-go. You know, when the Lord speaks to Avraham, and he says “Through you, all the families of the earth will be blessed.” There’s a way to get the grace out global!
When I discovered Israel’s Messiah and asked Yeshua, asked Jesus in my heart that mediated such life, such energy. This whole new starburst of enthusiasm, this new approach to life, whole new beginning there. I wound up getting an associate degree, a bachelor’s degree, two master’s degrees, and two doctoral degrees and became a college professor. I never saw that in the stars.
I took a sabbatical from teaching and went to the police academy just donating services as a police officer. And I do that to this day as a director, the Associate Director of a police academy in Dallas. It’s a rather odd combination people think: the religious thing in the one hand and the streets on the other but to me it’s all about helping people. There are lots of problems in this world. I want to be part of the cure. When I look at the first few chapters of the Bible, I wrap yellow crime-scene tape all around it. I mean you haven’t read five minutes into the Bible till you realize that sin has made its entrance onto the stage of the human drama. At the end of the day, we all have a little bit of Adam and Eve in us.
You know I believe that God so loved the world that He sent His Son into the world and He didn’t just come into it in general, he wants to come into our world in particular. I know the real me. I really don’t think I’m all that much now. I know I wasn’t a whole lot when it when it all began. Man looks at the outward appearance but God looks at the heart, and as much as God was gracious to see potential in me – not just problems, would it be that I’m more capable to see that in others, and would it be that we all were minded to discern what is good and beautiful in people, not just what’s disappointing.
Dr. Jeffrey Seif is One for Israel
Choose Life, Avoid Hell
Jesus/Yeshua,
Please hear my prayer.
- I admit I'm a sinner in need of a Saviour – [Romans 3:10 / 3:23 / 6:23]
- I believe in my heart that Jesus/Yeshua is Lord – Jesus Christ was crucified, buried and rose again, paying in full the death penalty for my sin. [Romans 10:9-10]
- I call upon the name of the Lord and I confess with my mouth Jesus/Yeshua is Lord and I believe in my heart the God raised Him from the dead, so I will be saved. For it is with my heart that I believe, and am justified and it is with my mouth that I confess and am saved. [Romans 10:9-10 / 10:13]